Original Oil Painting by Cathy Shannon of Crawfordsburn Park, sold by Emer Gallery Belfast

Artist: CATHY SHANNON

“Crawfordsburn Park”, Co. Down
Original Oil Painting | Emer Gallery, Belfast Provenance

A striking original oil painting by Northern Irish artist Cathy Shannon, depicting Crawfordsburn Park, County Down.

This is a particularly attractive and contemporary interpretation of the County Down landscape, with Shannon reducing the view to strong bands of colour: a vivid coral-pink foreground, dark silhouetted woodland, violet-blue hills and a beautifully soft pink sky.

The result sits between traditional Irish landscape painting and modern abstraction, making it an exceptionally easy piece to display in a contemporary interior.

The painting is signed lower left and presented in its distinctive painted frame, ready to hang.

EMER GALLERY, BELFAST PROVENANCE

An especially interesting feature is the original Emer Gallery label surviving on the reverse.

The gallery label identifies:

Artist: Cathy Shannon
Title: Crawfordsburn Park
Stock No.: 71407
Original Gallery Price: £295

This provides excellent provenance, independently identifying both the artist and the subject.

Emer Gallery was a long-established Belfast fine-art gallery, operating for decades and becoming an important part of the Northern Irish commercial art scene.

Over its history, Emer exhibited or handled work by significant Irish and Northern Irish artists including William Conor, Gerard Dillon, Paul Henry RHA, Tony O’Malley HRHA, Richard Croft PPRUA and Robert Bottom RUA, alongside emerging and contemporary Northern Irish painters.

Works carrying Emer Gallery provenance continue to appear through major Irish auction houses including Whyte’s and Adam’s.

The original £295 gallery price is also noteworthy given the period of the label and demonstrates that the work was originally positioned as a serious piece of contemporary gallery art rather than simply decorative artwork.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Cathy Shannon’s work is particularly interesting for its emphasis on colour, simplified form and abstraction.

Research has identified an Antrim-based Northern Irish artist of the same name whose later work developed increasingly towards abstract and Celtic-inspired compositions, predominantly in oil.

That artist subsequently established an international presence through Saatchi Art, where a 46 × 38 cm oil, Butterfly II, is recorded as sold at €765.

The geographic, medium and stylistic similarities are compelling, although I have not independently established that the Saatchi artist and the Cathy Shannon represented by this Emer Gallery painting are definitively the same person, so this is included as interesting research rather than claimed provenance.

THE PAINTING

Crawfordsburn Park is particularly effective because Shannon has avoided a conventional picturesque treatment of the location.

Instead, the County Down landscape is simplified into almost abstract areas of colour.

The intense pink/coral foreground contrasts beautifully with the dark central landscape and distant purple hills, producing an atmospheric image that feels surprisingly contemporary.

It is a medium-sized original painting, making it easy to accommodate while still having excellent visual impact when hung.

DETAILS

Artist: Cathy Shannon
Title: Crawfordsburn Park
Subject: Crawfordsburn, County Down
Medium: Original oil painting
Signed: Yes, lower left
Provenance: Emer Gallery, 467 Antrim Road, Belfast
Gallery stock number: 71407
Original gallery price: £295
Frame: Painted wooden frame
Condition: Good overall vintage condition. Some age-related marks and wear to the frame as visible in the photographs. Please examine all photographs as part of the condition description.

Original Emer Gallery label remains attached verso.

Ready to hang.

Collection preferred.